Five Years
by Kate-Emma
Summary: Complete - Max & Millie - It's been five years and paths cross again, but reunions aren't always what's expected, and sometimes they're the end and not the start.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own 'The Bill' because if I did I'd be fighting tooth and nail to get it back. Song is 'Let Her Go' by Passenger.

**A/N: **Been a long time between drinks hasn't it? Let's see if I can find the love again…

_only need the light when it's burning low, only miss the sun when it starts to snow, only know you love her when you let her go…_

Five Years  
Max & Millie  
Rated: T (adult themes)

The way back was the hardest. The road back from the edge was the most difficult road ever. It was like going home when you were feeling so homesick you could surely die, because then that road just stretched on and on, and you thought you'd never get home.

Max Carter didn't know what home was anymore. Once upon a time it had been work, his career, he'd lived through that it seemed. But in the end, when the drugs took work away from him, when he was cast aside because of what he'd become, he found himself with nothing and no one. He didn't have love, not even from family, and he didn't have a home. He had a cold, empty flat in the middle of London, and no idea what to do with himself now.

It was his sister who dragged him into rehab. She'd always been the strong-willed one of the family, yes someone more adamant in their 'always right' than Max, which said a lot obviously. Got it from their mother, she said, that way it wasn't her fault. Sarah was her name, she was 3 years Max's senior, had a husband and two kids and took crap from no one. He didn't know how she found out he'd lost his job but she knew everything. No one hid things from Sarah Bishop nee. Carter.

Rehab was hard, anyone who said recovering was easy was a liar, because there was nothing easy about it. In the end it was some sort of medieval torture, Max decided, because it broke down everyone one of your walls until you were a sobbing mess on the floor, then laid all the pieces in front of you and went 'which ones do you want to keep?'. After that it told you to put yourself back together again. If you put yourself back together wrong the process started again until you got it right. Max relapsed twice. Twice! Max failing… it wasn't something he accepted quickly, alas, he did.

The third time he got it right. It had taken 5 years.

On release he didn't know what happened next. He found himself wandering on that road, trying to find home, but knowing that staying at his sister's place and trying to help around the house wasn't who or what he was. He needed to find himself again and recovering from the drugs weren't enough. He'd broken himself down, looked at the pieces on the floor and finally decided which were the good ones, and yet he didn't know himself. He had no idea who he was or what he wanted from life anymore.

It was his sister's idea to travel, because as it can be made obvious she is the heroine of Max's story, though may he never admit it. He had the funds, and though he lacked the desire, he went – mostly out of fear his sister would hurt him if he didn't see sense. So he travelled and for 6 months he saw things, did things that put the smile back onto his face. A smile, needless to say, that hadn't been there for a long time.

That hadn't even been there before the drugs.

…

Climbing back up the ladder was the hardest. The climb the second time around, to merely reclaim what you'd first had, was the most difficult climb ever. It was like going home when you were feeling so homesick you could surely die, because then that road just stretched on and on, and you thought you'd never get home.

Amelia Brown didn't know who she was anymore. On her shoulders sat two lives, balancing everything she'd wanted with what she'd landed with, and though she loved both she hated them too. Work and home, the great things that had been taken from her once, the way she'd been so close to making it only to have everything fall apart at her feet. But she was strong… stronger than anyone had ever given her credit for and she would not be defeated.

Counselors had picked and pulled apart the moments when her life had changed so often that sometimes she had to wonder if they lived just for these stories. They watched the way she walked, hoping maybe to see a limp or something, hopeful that one day she'd just groan in pain and they could say 'oh there it is! I knew she wasn't lying about the injury!' Sometimes she wished she was lying. The operations, the physiotherapy, being told that active duty might not be her thing anymore. She'd loved chasing down criminals and slapping on the cuffs – that had been her job! Now what did she have, she mused as she'd lay in that hospital bed after her surgery, in pain but distracting herself with these miserable thoughts. As much as they broke her heart they were still better than thinking about the stabbing pain in her hip.

Physiotherapy was hard, anyone who said recovering was easy was a liar, because there was nothing easy about it. Of course it was still less painful that the way the police board had grilled her when she applied to go back to work. She could never chase criminals again, she knew, but there was still a place for her surely? It had taken a long time for them to decide they could find a place for her. A place where she could do what she loved and not have to run down any criminals ever again. Of course they grilled her first, made her relive the night that druggie had cornered her in an alleyway and almost killed her, asking whether she still dreamed about that night. Dreamed? In quiet moments she could still hear the sound that metal bar had made as it smashed into her hip and leg over and over again.

But one day she woke up and realized she was now where she wanted to be. It had taken 5 years.

The Child Protection Unit became home. Millie found her calling here, and even though her life went from handcuffs to piles and piles of paperwork, she powered through it without worries. Her life began to settle down at last and confidence again seeped back into her life. She found herself connecting with people again, and then one night she didn't dream about the night she was attacked, and she knew she was getting there. She was moving on and she began to smile again. She stopped being afraid. She started to live once more.

She found that smile that had been there before the attack.

…

The circumstances that bring two people back to each other, in the storybooks at least, are always so dramatic. They come across as something you remember forever. They aren't meant to happen somewhere normal and boring, like a street, in the middle of the day, just holding a coffee and reading a newspaper. Maybe she was meant to knock over her bag and he was meant to pick it up, he'd look up and catch her eye, and the recognition would cross his face. She'd beam and say his name with shock and surprise, ask him how he was, and then invite him to take a seat. Maybe. But that wasn't how it happened. Instead he entered the coffee shop, stood in line, and didn't even notice the redhead in front of him. It wasn't something spectacular that brought them back together – it was a misplaced loyalty card and a helpful barista. It was a glance up at just the right time that caused eyes to meet and a flicker of recognition to pass over faces. A light smile from her and a nod from him. Then she took her loyalty card and walked away to find a table.

Of course maybe those big amazing moments could have happened if this were a storybook, one of those ones where the girl gets swept off her feet by the hero, but that wasn't going to be the case. Max Carter was not a hero – he was an-ex DS who'd lost himself to drugs, found himself again in time, and had come back to Canley to sell his flat and away. Millie Brown had come to visit a friend who was running late and left her alone in a coffee shop. He got himself another table and waited for his coffee, a takeaway cup he found himself getting, though he'd gone in with the intention of staying at first. Some might say it was the sight of her that changed his mind. He'd disagree. Those 'some' would be right.

"Hi" Max's eyes rose and he turned his head as the redhead stood across the table from him. She smiled. "How are you sarge?"

Her voice stabbed through him and he knew full well why but he'd never say it out loud. In rehab he'd been forced so often to think about when he was last really happy, when he'd last achieved something to be proud of, and the times when life had shown him that it could be better than what it was. When he was last happy had been at work, he found that answer simple enough, but the other two not so. What was the last thing he'd been proud of? He'd been proud of that moment when he'd connected with someone he didn't think he ever would, when he understood how someone worked he hadn't expected he ever would, and that person was Millie Brown. The PC had pushed him a few too many times before that, he'd come to actually dislike when she joined the team for an investigation, and yet when she got herself kidnapped to plead the innocence of a single mother things had changed. And when had life shown him things could be better? When he felt himself asking if she wanted to talk and she'd turned him down. It wasn't often you found a smile in rejection and yet he had…

And then, mid an investigation with her, she'd disappeared. A secondment, they said, but then he heard she'd moved on for good. He never found out where. He heard things though, when he put his ear to the ground, and none of them really surprised him – Internal Investigation. She'd always been a stickler for the rules.

Eventually he found his voice. "Hi." It sounded constricted, like someone had taken hold of him, had pushed him down as he tried t speak and winded him. He hoped she hadn't noticed. "I'm okay. How are you?"

She smiled a little more at his question. She wasn't used to Max being decent to her, at least not unless she had to get herself in a dangerous position first, or if he was feeling a little under the weather. She hadn't wanted to leave Sun Hill, that was true, but in the end things had become too much for Millie and she knew she had to move. The too much had been Max. She couldn't help but think if she'd just got on top of her feelings, or maybe talked to him, then all the bad things that had happened wouldn't have happened. Moving across town, to a brand new station in a better part of town, was supposed to mean life was easier. Canley, right in the heart of the east of London, seemed like a mecca for crime but her new borough was west and that was supposed to be better right? Not. She didn't know if anyone at Sun Hill knew what had happened too her, for she was too proud to say why she'd left, and too stubborn to go back when she realized this new place wasn't any better.

Then, merely 7 months into her new stationing, the attack happened. And that had been the end of that.

"Good – busy. Are you still at Sun Hill?" He still hadn't offered her a seat but Millie didn't really expect he would. She didn't mind standing for a bit but eventually her hip would start hurting and she'd just have to take the seat whether offered or not.

Max shook his head. "No I left policing. Personal stuff." Millie nodded. He motioned to the chair across from him. "You should sit."

She smiled and took the seat. "Thanks." She continued without being asked. "I'm in Child Protection now. It's hard but worth it." He smiled lightly and she liked the sight of it. She'd almost forgotten what it looked like, since she'd seen it so rarely, like some kind of beautiful endangered animal. "So what do you do now?"

"Not much." Millie gave a small laugh. Had Max Carter actually made a joke? "I'm working out what I want to do now policing is behind me. It's not much fun doing nothing."

Millie nodded. "I understand that." But she didn't elaborate. They both seemed determined to hold so much back from each other, the made even more obvious when a small boy entered the store and yelled 'mumma!' and Millie turned. Max frowned at the child. He was about 5 years old, sandy brown hair, chubby cheeks. He ran up to Millie and clutched her middle before he turned his eyes to Max and frowned lightly. Millie stroked his hair gently. "Charlie, this is my friend Max, we used to work together once."

Max held out a hand. "Nice to meet you Charlie." The boy just stared at it and slowly Max retracted the hand. Millie gave him a 'sorry' look and he shrugged. He only looked up again when a woman joined them, someone who'd obviously come with Charlie, since he evidently hadn't come alone. She introduced herself as Evelyn and she did shake Max's hand. She led Charlie away to order and Millie watched them go with a light smile. "You have a son?"

Millie nodded with a smile. Indeed she always smiled when someone spoke of Charlie. He was the best thing in her life, which no one could believe considering how he came to be there, how the druggie who broke her leg and left her forced to get a knee replacement also left her with Charlie, but it wasn't her son's fault who his father was and what he'd done. Nor was it a topic to bring up with Max. As good as it was to see him again, he was part of her old life, and she'd told herself when she was recovering from her surgery that none of that mattered anymore. What mattered was what happened from here on out. "He's almost 5 and still naïve enough to think there's good in everyone. Remind you of someone?"

Max smiled lightly. "Am I supposed to think that's a bad trait?" Millie breathed a hiss of a laugh. "Someone was so adamant it wasn't once, made me believe it too."

She nodded curtly. "Good." Charlie's voice floated across the room and Millie smiled at Max. "It was good to see you again sarge. I hope you find a new career soon."

She pushed herself to her feet but Max spoke again. "Millie." Her eyes flicked back to him. "If you're ever free to catch up again?"

But his words hurt both of them. The reality that nothing would ever happen, could ever happen, because too much had changed. When Millie left Sun Hill Max lost someone who would look out for him, someone he'd neglected to look twice at for so long, but who would have stopped him before he could drown in his drugs. The highlights of his life were work, and those moments involved her, and Sun Hill. It wasn't the same when she left. For her she'd pulled away from that good life because she didn't want to be hurt anymore. She thought leaving would be better but instead it threw her right into a life that was worse. They were both getting better, even though it had taken a long time, and neither could take a step back now. It was time to let go. She just smiled lightly. "Maybe one day." But she left the table without leaving a number and Max expected no less. When his coffee came he took it and left the shop to save them both something awkward.

When she'd left Sun Hill he'd never got a chance to say goodbye, and she avoided it, but this seemed to be it.

It had taken 5 years.

_only know you've been high when you're feeling low, only hate the road when you're missing home, only know you love her when you let her go_


End file.
